Curation is the name of the game nowadays, and Twitter wants to get in on the action with Moments, a new service that the company launched this morning which aims to turn the chaotic nature of Twitter into something more engaging and organized. Basically, a team of editors will find trending tweets on Twitter, containing everything from breaking news to popular videos, and then curate them into an easily navigable collection. Coincidentally, Reddit did almost exactly the same thing today, for almost exactly the same reason, with its new Upvoted website.
Twitter has launched Moments, a new service which hopes to show users the day’s most popular stories, as the 140-character social network takes a stab at news curation. The new button in the middle of the app marked by a lightning bolt brings users a curated, magazine-style view filled with comments, images and videos pulled from users on the ground and news organisations’ Twitter feeds. The Moments tab shows stories curated by a small editorial team based at Twitter in New York. The tab is divided into sections including “today” and news, sports and entertainment. It forms part of Twitter’s attempts to make its service more appealing for novice users or those that have used Twitter and then left, feeling a lack of engagement. Madhu Muthukumar, Twitter’s product manager for Moments, said: “We know finding these only-on-Twitter moments can be a challenge, especially if you haven’t followed certain accounts. But it doesn’t have to be. “Moments helps you find the best of Twitter as easily as tapping an icon – regardless of who you follow.” The new feature is being rolled out to US users across Twitter’s Android, iOS and web apps right now, although users outside of the US can view them if sent a link. Twitter plans to roll the localised feature out to Europe at a later date.
